"King Kong" 1933

What, No Jimmy Durante?

King Kong enters the Hirschfeld Pantheon

In Hirschfeld’s account book, there is an entry for a drawing in the Herald Tribune on March 5, 1933, titled “Jimmy Durante”. Searching through the section, there is no sign of Jimmy Durante, but there is a familiar large ape terrorizing the streets of New York City. Upon closer look, it was obvious that Hirschfeld had drawn the legendary King Kong, a brand new discovery.

King Kong premiered just two days before Hirschfeld’s drawing ran in the paper. It was shown simultaneously at the RKO Roxy and Radio City Musical Hall across the street. RKO was the film’s production company, but it seems more likely that Hirschfeld was assigned this drawing by the Tribune, to cover the action of the wildly successful opening. For the first four days after the film’s premiere, there were 10 showings a day; every single showing was sold out. These numbers were ballyhooed as a record at the time for largest attendance at any indoor event. Despite all its success, Kong failed to get any Academy Award nominations, though David O. Selznick, the film’s producer, pushed the Academy to give a special award to the crew for visual effects. Ironically, the visual effects category would later be added in 1938, with Selznick’s Gone with the Wind as its first winner. The Library of Congress deemed King Kong so "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" to be added to the National Film Registry, a selection of films that are preserved for future generations.